Operation: “The World” is a Go

 (1/2-1/15)

So many things have happened it’s hard to know where to start. We are two weeks into our volunteering and are half way done. Time has gone by fast and we can’t believe that we only have two weeks left. I will run through our typical week so you can get an idea of what we do here in Vietnam. We are stationed in Quang Ngai, Vietnam which is the 4th largest city in Vietnam but still feels like a small town to us. The people here are great! We feel like movie stars as we walk down the street. Quang Ngai is not a touristy town so we get lots of stares and “Hello’s” along with “What’s your name?”. They are not used to seeing white people and find us somewhat of a novelty.

We live in a rented house just outside the main street with one other volunteer, Jarrah, from Australia.

We have a translator, Tuan, who comes with us to our placements. A cook, Mrs Be, and a night watchman, Mr. Mahn. We get up every morning around 7 am, toss the mosquito net aside, and make our way downstairs to our breakfast waiting for us on the table.

Mondays and Wednesdays we take a taxi to two small villages (Binh Hoa and Nghia Hanh) outside the city. Both of these places have rehabilitation centers where the parents can bring there kids. The rehabilitation center is not what you would imagine by western standards. It’s a large room that maybe has an exercise back and parallel bars where everyone sits on the ground waiting for us to arrive.

This was a little frustrating at first as we felt that they were waiting for some kind of miracle to be performed on their children. You want to do so much but sometimes have to realize that just by being there and walking with them or encouraging them is more than they get all week. I continue to remind myself of the prayer, “God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

We bring milk and fruit for the kids and plenty of toys and books. We try and play with the kids and stimulate them as much as possible. Most of them have some sort of disability and we try our best to work with them. GVN, the organization that we are volunteering through has received a sponsorship for a physical therapist to be at these centers as well and do exercises with the kids. We are very excited for this and think it will make a huge difference. We see some issues with the kids that would not be a big deal if they had the proper exercises or medical attention, but they don’t and it ends up impairing them worse than it has too. Most of these people come from poorer areas and the toys that we bring might be the only ones they have. For example, one day we brought little toy cars and noticed even the mothers being super protective over the car that their child was playing with and wouldn’t let it out of their sight. We ended up just giving them the cars at the end of they day because we couldn’t bear the thought of having to ask for it back when it maybe cost us 10 cents a car. We usually bring toys to and from the places. We spend about two hours there and then had back to the house for lunch and a few hours break.

At about 3:00pm we bike to the Social Protection Center in town. The SPC is an orphanage with about 80 children ranging in ages from 2 days to 20 years old. We only see about 30 children at a time as most are in school or older and do their own thing. We teach English with the 6-9th graders and bring toys and games for the rest of the kids.

There are about 4 children who have disabilities that we try and pay extra attention to since they don’t get any from the “mothers” at the orphanage. There are also two babies who I love but do receive lots of attention so I try not to spend to much time with them.

This is little Phuoc. I believe he has cerebral palsy. He loves to be held and make sounds back and forth. This is a great example where it doesn’t matter what language you speak.

I have already found favorites and it has been hard not to let is show. There is an adorable little four year old, Ty, who has a stellar smile.

Our goal is to get him in school. The administration doesn’t want to send him saying he is “mental” because his mom was labeled as “mental” we do not know to what extent she was disabled or crazy? But from what we can see and from what past Vietnamese speaking volunteers have seen he seems to have a normal mental capacity for a four year old. The “mothers” said he doesn’t always understand or listen to everything they are saying and he sometimes walks on his tip-toes. This sounded normal to us for a four year old. There are no other children his age there so he spends most of the day hanging out with the disabled children.

Tao is a lovely girl who is categorized as disabled. We are not sure to the extent of her disability. We are also trying to get her in to a disabled school. They say her brain has stopped working and won’t progress. But we brought her to Mrs. Kahn’s class and saw huge improvements. We believe she just needs some attention.

We don’t always understand the politics of the orphanage and find it frustrating when they put road blocks up for us. We think they would do well in school and really needs a chance to get away from the orphanage for a few hours a day. We visit SPC every day in the afternoon for a few hours and then go home for dinner.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we bike to a disabled school where we help the greatest teacher ever, except for my parents, Mrs. Kahn. There is one classroom that Mrs. Kahn teaches of about 10-12 mentally disabled students and then another class for deaf children. When we arrive the kids all run up and give us hugs wanting to be at our side at all times. We love it!

We find the deaf boys difficult at times since they resort to violent means to get our attention and each others and this seems to be the norm. There is a range of ages and they are constantly hitting and kicking each other. Vietnamese sign language is quite different than American Sign Language so it is a whole new thing for us to learn. We try and make eye contact with them the best we can and use body language to communicate things. The disabled class loves to do crafts and the deaf class of boys love sports. So, we usually offer both when we are there.

Monday and Tuesday evenings we help teach English at the Foreign Language center. The classes range from intermediate to advanced. We mainly help them with pronunciation and conversational topics. We leave the grammar to the real teachers. It gives them a chance to converse and practice their English. Most of them are very excited to learn since being able to speak English in Vietnam opens many more doors to them and their families.

Thursday evenings we join Mrs. Kahn and her husband, Mr. Viet, at their English club. This is more laid back and strictly conversational. The number of students vary every week and we decide on a new topic of discussion each week as a class. We think they all speak English very well so we gave them some tongue twisters to spice it up a bit.

(12/30-1/2/08)

We flew out Dec. 30^th to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, to spend New Year’s Eve before we started our volunteer work. We may have mentioned how crazy traffic was in Bangkok…but that was nothing compared to traffic here. I have never seen so many motorbikes in my life. This was a small parking lot outside of a store.

It’s not just the motorbikes it’s what is on the motorbikes. We have seen families of five, refrigerators, mattresses, ducks, pigs, newborns (I didn’t like this one), fruit baskets, and whatever else you can think of. I would even have to say the kitchen sink. Crossing the street is an adventure sport here. Brian says it is like you’re a pebble in a stream of water. You slowly walk across the street and the traffic just flows on either side of you. I say it’s like playing frogger and I just hope that I don’t get hit!

We met an Australian couple that were in the same situation as us and had not booked a room in advance. Together we trotted through the Pham Ngu Lao neighborhood looking for availability. We found a hotel owner who had another location about 500 meters away where we each got our own room and bathroom, fridge, TV, and wireless internet for $12 a night. This was our first sign that things would be cheaper in Vietnam. This was good for us since the islands of Thailand were not as cheap as the rest of the country especially during the holidays. We learned this was prime travel time for a lot of Europeans. Thailand is like our Mexico or even Hawaii. It’s somewhere warm and tropical close by for them to escape to.

We went out for drinks that evening with our new friends and made plans to meet up for New Year’s Eve as well. This was one of the many restaurants we came across. We though it was quite funny.

They had streets blocked off for concerts all night and we were able to watch from a terrace of a bar and countdown to midnight. Happy New Year! Brian and I were making our way back to the hotel when we stopped at another hotel to ask if we could use their bathroom but before we could open our mouths they grabbed us and pulled us over to their little party. So we kept our mouths shut and enjoyed a glass of wine with food and great conversation with the other hotel guests and staff. It wasn’t until hours later when everyone was leaving to go to their room and us to our own hotel that they realized we weren’t staying there. Whoops! Fortunately, for us they thought it was pretty funny. Our next stop is Da Nang, Vietnam where we start out orientation for volunteering.

(12/15-12/30)

We enticed another one to cross the seas and join us. My sister, Elizabeth, elected to spend a portion of her winter break with us in Thailand. It originally was going to be Australia, but since we had to cut out the South Pacific she thought Thailand would still do the trick. The plan was to spend our time mostly on the islands in Thailand and soak up the sun.

We made our way back to Bangkok to pick up Elizabeth who was expected to arrive at midnight on Saturday. We had made reservations at the place we stayed at last time since we were familiar with the area and knew how to get around. We turned down three higher priced cabs before one finally decided to take us and use his meter. We knew their argument that there was traffic was bogus at this time of night. We arrived shortly there after at the airport and staked out a spot to look for Liz. We decided she was going to be harder to spot than we thought since her long dark hair and slim figure seemed to fit right in among the other young Asian females. I was starting to get a little worried as the time quickly passed after her plane landed and still no sign of her. Eventually she founds us there was another exit that we didn’t know about.

The next morning we took Liz to the crazy malls because Brian and I were crazing some western food. We felt bad that Liz’s first meal in Thailand was Burger King but we figured she would get plenty of Thai food on the rest of the trip. We then took the sky train to the riverboats and the boat to the Grand Palace.

After the Grand Palace we took a tuk-tuk to Chao San Road to do a little shopping and get a fruit smoothie. It was a hot day out!

The next thing on the list was to do a little island hopping. We flew to Krabi where we picked up a ferry to go to the island of Koh Lanta. Liz was super excited to get some sun and sand. We had a great time on the island laying out in the hot sun during the day and dancing with the locals at night.

We also did an elephant trek to a nearby waterfall. The boys in charge of the elephants were quite fond of Liz. I think they took more photos than we did!

The day before Liz’s birthday we took another ferry to Ko Phi Phi Le Island. We had read that this was supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands in Thailand and has the famous beach from the movie The Beach.

The island was gorgeous but not the paradise that we were expecting. It was overtaken by Swedes. We planned on staying on more of a secluded part of the island but changed our mind when we got there. The secluded parts of the island were only accessible by long tail boats and so it made it difficult to get to and from the main town which had all the entertainment and restaurants. We didn’t want to make Liz hang out with an “old married couple” on a romantic beach on her b-day so we stayed in town to liven things up a little bit.

On her birthday we went on a great snorkel trip! It was Liz’s first time snorkeling. We visited several different locations to snorkel and saw large amounts of tropical fish. Some very strange looking! We also visited Maya Beach where Leonardo Di Caprio filmed the famous movie “The Beach”. We did our best to re-create the scenes…

The snorkel trip was complete with dinner and a sunset aboard the boat. We then spruced ourselves up and went to the beach hang outs for the night.

We went green with Liz’s birthday gift this year and used leaves for the wrapping paper.

The next few days were the Christmas Holiday. We had a great Christmas Eve buffet at one of the western restaurants and planned to go scuba diving on Christmas Day.

This year’s Christmas picture was a little different for us.

We think eating all the western food on the island made Liz and Brian sick since the ingredients were most likely imported and not as fresh as the local cuisine. We woke up Christmas morning and Brian wasn’t feeling well so we postponed scuba diving for two days but then Liz wasn’t feeling well. Baking in the sun all day can definitely run the body down. Minus the sicknesses we had a great time on the island and we were able to get a nice tan.

We took another ferry back to Krabi and then boarded a bus to Surat Thani. We spent the night there and flew back to Bangkok the next day.

In Bangkok we visited the weekend market, which is the largest in the city. It has roughly over 25,000 stalls! I think we barely made a dent in it before it started to get dark and close down.

Here is what the street looked like as we were leaving the market.

Liz found some souvenirs for herself and friends to take home. Briand and I had to refrain from buying anything since our two small bags couldn’t fit another toothpick in them at this point. We made one last jaunt around the city and then back to the hotel for a couple of hours of sleep before we put Liz on a plane at 4:30am.

It was so great to have someone traveling with us especially over the holidays. It helped us to feel a little closer to home. We also enjoyed having someone else to play cards and exchange gifts with.

(A late update taken from the journal)

We have been on the island of Ko Chang for seven days now. We arrived on a Saturday and joined the masses of local Thais on their long weekend. We chose to stay in a bungalow on Kai Bae beach on the west coast of the island. It’s a little more affordable and less touristy than “White Sand Beach” just north of us.

Porn’s Bungalows doesn’t have much of a sandy beach until the tide goes out in the evening, but it is the home of one of the best restaurants. We spend our long breakfasts, lunches, and dinners relaxing at the very laid back haven. It has mostly low tables and floor mats to sit on with randomly placed hammocks and beach chairs filling in the gaps.

The atmosphere at night, with the Asian lanterns glowing along the thatched roof is something else.

We rented a scooter and made it around the island in two days. The landscape has many steep hills and jungle like brush. A little scary at times on the scooter, but still fun. Most of our time is spent along the beaches - kayaking, swimming, reading, or just listening to music.

We may have the occasional trip to town for a change of scenery, but we decided that we prefer to stay away. Each little town or inland market is the same. They each sell the exact same clothes and items, but you end up spending several more Bahts trying to unsuccessfully haggle over the price. Each restaurant tries to find its niche, offering such classics as Italian, Mexican, and European style foods. None as good or as cheap as the local Thai meals. All in all a great get away from the nearby Bangkok.

That was the going question for our next part of the trip as we ventured into Northern Thailand. We decided to take a trek and chose a 3 day 2 night, non-touristy trek around Pai. Pai is about 2 hours north of Chiang Mai. The trek was unforgettable for us. It was a great way to see the landscape of the north and experience the culture of the local tribal villages. We also met a great group of people that were able to hang out with after the trek for a few nights.

The trek was more difficult than we expected or at least for us it was. Others in our group seemed to have no problem. We climbed into the back of a pick-up and drove to a local village where we had lunch and visited the school children.

We think the children were learning how to cultivate the land or just playing with hack saws…not quite sure?

From there we started our trek. On the first day, the climb, was mostly uphill and in the hot sun and definitely a rude awakening for us on how out of shape we were!

We arrived in the afternoon at a local village where we played football (soccer) with everyone. Soccer has never been my sport so I thought I would try being goalie then I could at least use my hands. After a few good saves and a ball in the face I wanted to dodge the ball instead of block it. I handed my spot over to one of the locals and decided to play sport photographer instead.

There were eleven of us on the trek. Six English, two American’s, one Australian, and our two fearless leaders from Thailand, Crazy-boy, and Danny. Crazy-boy was simply that a little crazy, but in a good way. He was 23 years old and grew up in one of the tribal villages. He was born deaf so he can’t speak or hear. At one point, we all thought it was a little funny that we were being led through the jungles of Thailand by a boy who can’t speak or hear us. It just added to the adventure!

After soccer, we headed back to our 5 star hotel for the night. A room made from bamboo with mats on the floor.

We had a great dinner cooked by our guide and then watched and listened to the local children sing and dance.

The little ones always made us smile!~

The next morning we set out again on our next trek where we would stop at another local village and take a swim in the nearby waterfall. The waterfall was refreshing.

Here is when we gave a BIG THANKS to WASHING MACHINES! Something we have done a few times on our travels.

We had some sort of noodle soup and rice for lunch. It reminded me of my college dorms days where ramen noodle was our staple as well. A couple of hours rest and then on the trail again till we arrived at the elephant camp.

The elephants were awesome. What amazing creatures they are! We were happy to see the people at this particular camp really taking care of the elephants. One of the elephants was sick and we couldn’t ride it so our group had to trade off a little to ensure everyone at least got some riding in. It took a little while to get used to of the idea of sitting on an animal that could easily overpower a human at any minute. I was glad to find out these elephants were well trained and listened accordingly.

Being able to sit back and ride for awhile and not have to look at where we were putting our feet let us really take in our surroundings. We couldn’t believe where we were! We were treading through creeks with baby elephants following us and in one of the greenest backdrops I have ever seen. Absolutely beautiful! I don’t think our pictures can even compare.

Once we left the elephants we had another short trek of “up and downs” and then we arrived at our next village and bamboo hut for the night. We all were starving and eager to see what our next meal would be. A potato and chicken curry along with a pumpkin dish. This is where Brian decided he hates Corriander, even more than he hates tomatoes.

We had a bonfire and then retreated to our mats for the night. The next day was an easier trek through the jungle where we climbed to an awesome look out point and then to our bamboo rafts.

Bamboo rafting again another first for us. We floated down the river and tried our harderst and not getting our raft over taken by the English. But to no avail by the end each raft had been overtaken and we had destroyed two of them. I guess that’s what happens when you put six grown men on a bunch of bamboo tied together. Soaked and tired we crawled in to the pick-up with the others and drove back to Chiang Mai…and that was the end to our trek adventure.

Coming soon…

Culture shock is right! Things are definitely different. We arrived shortly after midnight and had arranged to have a driver from our hotel meet us at the airport and escort us to the hotel. The drive to the hotel was the first sign that things were going to be a little different here. The streets were lined with super modern shopping centers and small make-shift buildings made out of tin and whatever else they could find.

We stayed at the Avana Hotel which was very nice and had all the Western amenities that we are accustomed to. It was a nice way to ease us into this new culture.

The next morning we ventured to the hotel restaurant for our first Thai breakfast. A buffet style breakfast was included and had everything from Thai rice dishes to American fried eggs. Nothing seemed outstanding yet, but it was edible and that was a good sign. At this time, we had no idea how much we would end up loving traditional Thai food. After breakfast and much needed showers we ventured out to see Bangkok.

We took a taxi to the sky train to bring us into the center of the city. The sky train again was ultra modern with flat screen TVs and trendy design. We bought day passes for the public transportation which totaled 240 Baht about $3 a person. This was a welcome change from what we were spending to get around in Europe. We got off at Siam Square and walked into what was one of the craziest and largest shopping malls I have ever been in. Everywhere I looked I saw top-end stores! Emily, you would have been in heaven. I couldn’t figure out what all this was doing in Bangkok. Were people really shopping in these stores? Or were they just there for show? I still haven’t figured it out yet and after making a couple different stops at the mall. I still have not seen anyone actually shopping in the stores. We have been told by many that Bangkok is not Thailand. I think they are right.

We made our way to the river and picked up a river express boat. Another fun form of public transportation.

We took it to one the temples where the famous large reclining Buddha was displayed.

We strolled through the grounds of the temple admiring the details of the Asian designs.

After two days at Avana Hotel we moved to the Bed and Breakfast Hotel in Siam Square which is the shopping mecca of Bangkok and also a great hub for all the public transportation. This was a small and neat little hotel and we were starting to get a good feel of the city.

To end our few nights in the city we made sure to take a trip to Khao San Road. This is the famous street or small neighborhood that has catered to backpackers for hundreds of years. As we toured this part of the city it became clear how highly regarded the King of Thailand is here. There are pictures of him posted everywhere!

The people of Thailand also found a great use for all those promotional AOL cd’s that you get in the mail. I wonder if St. Paul can implement a similar recycling strategy?

Our next stop would be the floating market in Damnoen Saduak which is just a few hours from Bangkok.

California here we come! I just love to say it. We arrived in San Francisco Wednesday afternoon and were greeted at the airport by Lindsay and Luke. We decided to drive straight into the city and get something to eat. A sour-dough bread bowl of clam chowder on the wharf seemed fitting….and it was! I never thought I would like clam chowder but it was mighty tasty.

We spent a few hours walking along the wharf and piers and then took a drive over the Golden Gate Bridge. It is one long bridge.

We found a little turn off after the bridge that led us up to a great view of the city and the bridge. We stayed for sunset and all took several night photos of the bridge.

The next day we decided to take a trip along the coast and Highway 1 and head into Napa Valley for an overnight stay. The coastline was gorgeous and really gave us a view of the fog that covers the city.

The roads were windy and reminded us of our drives in Europe. Luckily, no one felt sick this time. The drive took a little longer than expected and we arrived in Guerneville in the afternoon famished. We found a great little burger and sandwich shop to eat at and then we were off to find the Korbel Champagne factory.

We got there about 15 mins after the last tour but we were able to catch up with the group and experience the most important parts of the tour, such as, how it’s made and the tasting.

Cheers!

Our waitress from the burger shop told us where we could find a national forest full of redwoods so we quickly drove the few miles to get some tree hugging in before night fall.

We barely made it. We walked a short little path before we decided that it was just too dark and scary to continue farther in. Except for Brian, who ran in farther to make a quick video of how quiet and dark it was. It seriously is a black video of silence with Brian’s occasional whispers. I’m sure you are all dying to see it…I know I was. : )

We took the short drive in to Calistoga, the start of Napa Valley, to rest our heads for the night, but not before we joined the masses in getting mud baths and hot spring treatments. It was a first for us all and very interesting. I think some enjoyed it more than others. We had a light dinner and went to bed since we had a full day of tasting wine in the morning.

We grabbed a wine tour guide from our motel to help us along the way. The young girls there also recommended a great breakfast place. We filled our stomachs and set out to find our first winery. We missed the first winery on the list so we pulled over in a driveway to turn around and realized that we were looking up at a castle!

We couldn’t believe it. We drove up the long Tuscan-looking driveway to find ourselves staring at a winery housed in a European Castle. We signed up for a tour and tasting that started in an hour. In the meantime we headed back to another winery to get our taste buds ready. I could not believe how similar the landscape looked to Tuscany, Italy and the fall colors were just beautiful!

The Castello di Amorosa tour and tasting was definitely the highlight for us. The castle had been modeled after 12^th and 14^th century European castles. You can see where the look of the castle changes (the quality of stone) based upon the century.

Everything was done by “old world” ways and they tried to keep everything as authentic as possible. Most of the building supplies were brought over from Europe.

The castle grounds have over 16000 sq feet underground in cave systems that are complete with wine cellars, a dungeon, and a torture chamber.

The wine followed suit and was some of the best that we had. We all voted on joining the club in future years to come so we could join in on the parties that are thrown there each year. We visited several more wineries for tastings on our way home and stopped off for some Italian food before we got back to San Francisco.

Over the next few days Lindsay had to work so we took it easy at the apartment with Luke watching movies.

We then jumped the Cal Train to the city for a day of cable cars, listening to Christmas music, playing with the seals, and eating in China Town and Little Italy.

To end the Cali trip we took a scenic drive to Santa Cruz with Luke where we watched the surfers, visited the land bridges, and strolled through the streets.

I would recommend this trip to anyone that wants a taste of Europe for less without crossing big seas. I think Nancy (Brian’s Mom) was right on with San Francisco being one of the most European cities in America.

Overall, we had a great time and when Thanksgiving morning came around we were sad to say goodbye. We had such a great time at home and in California that it was tough to leave. The journey must go on. Off to the airport and the next 19 hours on a plane.

After much discussion we decided that we both would come home in October for the wedding instead of just Brian. To help offset the plane tickets we made the trip home for about a month instead of a week and flew home around the same time as everyone else the first week of October.

HOME is WONDERFUL! We were pleasantly surprised to find it 80 degrees and sunny when we got home. We were loving it. Brian’s parents and my brother Paul met us at the airport and took us to Perkins to meet my parents for some good American food. Well, the “good” part I suppose could be debated but the “American” was pretty right on. I was eager to get my chimis and side salad loaded with ranch dressing and Brian his chocolate-chipper. We were happy campers.

On our first weekend home we joined Brian’s parents and their MG Club on a fall color tour. Brian was very excited to be out driving his little red car. We were designated as the photographers of the tour and I found myself in awe of how beautiful everything was. After being in foreign places for so long, you start to look at everything in a different way. It was as if we were discovering MN for the first time. I think sometimes we take for granted how beautiful and fun even our familiar places can be.

We spent the next weeks visiting our families, taking it easy, and eating way to much food. While the first few days we were up early and what some might call “go-getters” it didn’t take long for us to get into a more of a laid back routine. 

 We did re-evaluate our trip plans and had to scale things down to the rising cost of jet fuel and the decreasing value of the dollar. They both led to a faster deflation of our “trip-money” than planned. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot on the way about traveling and ourselves. So, for the next part of our trip we estimated high. We decided that we had enough to comfortably enjoy one more region of the world and after much deliberation we chose Southeast Asia. We both are really sad and disappointed that we will not be making it to New Zealand and South America; however, we are excited to have the opportunity to visit a country that has cultures and traditions so different than our own. We felt that we could stretch our dollar the farthest here and it would be best explored while we are still in good health and a little crazy. I think we might be a little of both!

We hooked up with a great travel agent at University Travel in Minneapolis and found a ticket that would let us stopover in San Francisco and visit our travel buddies Lindsay and Luke for a week and then to Bangkok, Thailand. The only downside is that we have to spend Thanksgiving on a plane. We are extremely lucky that we were able to have Thanksgiving and Christmas, complete with stockings and a miniature tree, all in one day before we left.

We plan on exploring Thailand and the neighboring countries in November and December and then spending the month of January in Vietnam volunteering with Global Volunteer Network based out of New Zealand at the local orphanages and community sites. Our ticket includes a stop over in Tokyo, Japan on the way home where we will spend about six days soaking up the Japanese sights. Let the adventure begin…

Coming Soon…